Target Audience: Middle school students in rural communities
Subjects/Skills: Nutrient pollution, Science, Engineering, Civic engagement
Rural youth are uniquely attached to their communities and may be discouraged from pursuing engineering careers because of the misconception that they would have to leave their communities to do so. These ideas can discourage otherwise capable students from pursuing high-level courses and careers in engineering. Therefore, it is important that rural students have the opportunity to engage in personally relevant engineering problems that may spark interest in further engineering learning.
This NSF-funded project aimed to expand students’ ideas about engineering beyond iterative cycles of building and testing simple products by focusing on the pervasive environmental problem of nutrient pollution–excess levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in a body of water from sources such as fertilizer, septic tanks, and wastewater. In collaboration with a science teacher from a rural middle school on Cape Cod, we developed a three-week capstone project for middle school students aligned to the technology and engineering standards from the Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Framework and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). During the project, students apply and build upon the ideas they have learned about watersheds, ecosystems, water quality and pollution in science class to define the problem and develop their own engineering solutions to alleviate the impact of nutrient pollution on their local watershed. Students engage with real data and explore the role of models and simulations in engineering design as they develop a plan to manage the regional nutrient pollution problem. While completing the project, students should gain a better understanding of the close relationship between science and engineering.
This project involves a team of GBH staff, middle school students and teachers, a scientist with expertise in aquatic ecosystems and nutrient pollution, university-based and science museum-based partners.
Reach/Impact
The SCoPE curriculum was piloted with two teachers and 145 seventh grade students from eight science classes in a rural public school in May 2022.
After completing the SCoPE curriculum, students had a broader understanding of the types of activities engineers engage in and the types of problems they solve. For example, after completing the SCoPE curriculum, 92% of students said they thought engineers protected the environment compared to 60% on the pre-survey.
Finally, while boys’ interest in science and engineering did not significantly change, girls’ interest in engineering and confidence in becoming an engineer significantly increased, almost closing the gender gap between boys and girls.
Contact Us: education@wgbh.org.